Yellow Arrow Vignette | BLAZE
Serotinous
Rebecca Brock
Lodgepole Pine seeds are serotinous.
They require an environmental trigger to be released.
For the Lodgepole Pine that trigger is fire.
Some seeds need to burn to live.
It sounds impossible,
before you can be born,
the need to burn.
It sounds impossible,
taking root in the charred ashes,
the need to burn.
My own heat source simmering
taking root, in the charred ashes
burning out, I felt like weeping.
My own heat source simmering—
some say it is the fire of my life
burning out. I felt like weeping
and then raging.
Some say it is the fire of my life.
After this, ashes.
And then raging,
from my body, this life,
after this, ashes—
the tree already felled, already
buried in soil, waiting already
before you can be born,
holding on and on—
some seeds need to burn to live.
Rebecca Brock is the author of The Way Land Breaks (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023). Her work appears in The Threepenny Review, CALYX Journal, Rust & Moth, and elsewhere. Her awards include the 2025 Lascaux Poetry Prize, the Kelsay Book’s Woman’s Poetry Prize, and the Editor’s Choice Award at Sheila-Na-Gig. She is a reader for Supporting Women Writers in Miami (SWWIM). She has been a flight attendant for most of her adult life and is still surprised by this fact. Find her online at rebeccabrock.org.
About the author